What is the Fuss RED V ARRI Court Battle:

As you may or may not know RED and ARRI are having a very royal stink and right now the crocodile tears are either visible or the doe is in the headlights depending on what colour you see with. But just in case you don’t know what’s going on, here is a little recap of some of the RED ARRI drama so far.

In the Vision Wrangler 2011 Top 10 Cine Gear Hits and Misses Reduser took a miss but RECON was a shiny metal glimmering gem within that forum. We have entered 2012 and continue to love the entries posted by Jim Jannard. Truly. Not slowing down and not taking a step backwards JJ fingers the keys late at night and into the wee small hours and hammers out a great read with solid messages. Apparently all meaningful and all good until someone on the RED legal team sprays their first cup of Joe all over the morning RSS check.

Arri lawsuit…

This is certainly not our 1st choice. This is not something we would ever vote for.

It is hard enough to design and manufacture cameras in the USA. But we would certainly vote for a level playing field.
Apparently one of our competitors has elected to go for a different route. One that is unacceptable to us.
In the past, I have been an Arri fan. I own many Arri cameras. But the Arri of the past is apparently not the current Arri.
We have filed a lawsuit against Arri based on email hacking to the Nth degree. My personal communications have been compromised.
Litigation is reserved for the most severe and egregious cases. This qualifies.

Jim

My disdain for Arri…

I used to love Arri. I have many Arri cameras. Arri was the epitome of everything cameras should be.
Now… I have noting but disdain for Arri. Email hacking. Telling the world that 1080P is good enough when they were secretly working on a 4K camera.
So what happened?
I started RED because companies like Arri apparently do not have the industry’s best interests in mind. Arri used to be the ultimate. In my eyes Arri is now a fraud.
If you don’t like RED… buy a Sony.
I can’t wait for the feedback on this one…

Jim

So what is the stick in JJ’s craw? It is alleged there was unfair competition via Michael Bravin or Ed Carlton or somebody very naughty who used to work for Band Pro and then defected to ARRI and allegedly hacked a ship load of emails from their former employer and may or may not have passed that information on to ARRI shiny bottoms.
Oh no I hear you say… But wait there is more ARRI is accused of false advertising and dissing 4K and 4K camera makers. Also the acquisition of Band Pro by RED was apparently soiled by Bavin’s handy work. Other issues seemingly bugging Jim about ARRI are trade secrets, disgorgement, injunctive relief and cessation.
What does it all mean in legal terms? Justice, and punitive damages.

Here are a few grabs from the court document filed by RED on the 21/12/2011

As Jim Jannard said before the legal team got into work ” Let the courts decide this one.”